Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (95 page)

Breneman and West took measurements of the plaza and distances from
the Texas School Book Depository and matched everything against the
Zapruder stills.

Later that day, Breneman accompanied Life's investigators to the thirteenth floor of Dallas's Adolphus Hotel, where they were headquartered.
He said at that time everybody involved agreed that no one man could
have done all the shooting the day of the assassination.

Breneman said the magazine investigators also had obtained a MannlicherCarcano rifle and attempted to work the bolt in the time frame attributed to
Oswald.

Breneman, a former Marine medal winner for marksmanship, said he,
too, worked the rifle's bolt for hours. He said: We came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done in the time limit they were trying to get me
down to."

He also said a strange incident occurred during his time with the
magazine people: "This [one] man told me, `My life isn't worth a plug
nickel on this investigation.' Then he pulled his shirt back and showed me
this bullet-proof vest. I thought that was a little odd."

Breneman again was visiting his friend West on May 31, 1964, when
the FBI and Secret Service reenacted the assassination for the Warren
Commission. Both surveyors participated in the tests. Breneman recalled:

We again measured distances and elevations by matching the frames of
the Zapruder film. We examined a bullet mark on the curb on the south
side of [Elm] street. This part of the curb was replaced shortly after the assassination. Also, right after the assassination, they were mentioning a
[highway] sign which had a stress mark from a bullet on it. It's my
understanding that this particular sign was quickly taken down and no
one has been able to locate it.

During the May reenactment, Breneman said the FBI used a big Cadillac as a substitute for Kennedy's Lincoln Continental. "It was in no way
like Kennedy's limousine," said Breneman.

West said: "That was one thing that was always funny to me. They
brought this big old Cadillac down to use in the tests, but it was thirteen
inches higher than Kennedy's car."

Breneman added: "They were all crunched up in there, shoulder to
shoulder. In that condition it could have been possible for one man to
shoot two of them."

West said his study showed that one of the alleged shots from the
Depository followed a path straight through a leafy tree. West said: "If he
shot through a hole in that tree, it was absolutely fantastic." Breneman
concluded:

I wish to state that both investigations led us to believe beyond any
doubt that there were two assassins. Life magazine's special investigators believed this to be true. The Secret Service would not say. But at
the time, that seemed to be the reason we were there and we felt the
Secret Service felt that way too.

After the Warren Commission published the figures from the government reenactment, Breneman and West were shocked to find that the
figures did not match those made by them at the time. Both Breneman and
West retained copies of the Dealey Plaza reenactment figures.

Breneman said:

They [the figures] were at odds with our figures. After checking a few
figures, I said, "That's enough for me," and I stopped reading... .
For instance, on our map, we marked the spot corresponding to Zapruder
film frame 171. The Warren Commission changed this to 166 before
they used it in the report. The Warren Report shows a 210 where we
show a 208. . . . It would seem to me that . . . these figures were
changed just enough that the Warren Commission could come up with
the idea that another shot came from the same direction as the first. But
all I have been concerned with is, did another shot come from another
direction? I know danged well it did.

Neither Breneman nor West-the actual surveyors used for the Commission's reenactment studies-were asked to testify. Further, the Commis sion declined to publish the map drawn by Breneman and West, claiming
it was inaccurate.

This map indicates a bullet hit on the south curb of Elm Street. Breneman
said: "We were told not to study those bullet marks by the FBI."

Again, any meaningful search for the truth of the assassination was
ended by altered figures and orders not to note extraneous bullet marksall from federal authorities.

The physical evidence compiled against Lee Harvey Oswald appears
formidable at first glance-a rifle traced to him, three spent cartridges on
the sixth floor of the building where he worked, his palm print on the rifle,
and even photographs of Oswald holding the murder weapon. However,
the closer one inspects this evidence, the more questionable it becomes.

One example of tunnel vision on the part of federal authorities can be
found in studying the testimony of assassination witnesses. While many
people indicated the Texas School Book Depository as the source of shots,
the majority of witnesses in Dealey Plaza believed shots came from the
Grassy Knoll. Yet the federal authorities simply asserted they were wrong,
possibly confused by echoes. A much more plausible interpretation of this
evidence is that shots came from at least two separate locations.

Other witnesses-such as Jean Hill, Senator Ralph Yarborough, Phil
Willis, and James Tague-claim their testimony was altered by federal
authority.

Photographs of the crime scene and the empty shells found on the
Depository's sixth floor can be demonstrated to be inaccurate, making
them virtually useless as evidence.

One of the three shell casings was bent and would not have been able to
fire a slug in the condition in which it was found.

There are many questions concerning the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle reportedly used in the assassination, beginning with its make and model.
Even CIA documents questioned the accuracy of its identification.

Military experts stated it required the placement of three metal shims to
make the rifle accurate with the sight and that the rifle had been adapted
for a left-handed person. Oswald, according to his mother and his brother,
was right handed.

Oswald's palm print reportedly found by a Dallas policeman on the
underside of the dismantled rifle barrel has no chain of evidence and would
not have been permitted in a court of law. Further, it can be shown that the
incriminating palm print was likely made at the Miller Funeral Home by
placing the dead Oswald's hand on the rifle.

Even sophisticated spectrographic analysis failed to prove conclusively that pieces of bullet recovered from both Kennedy and Connally came
from the same bullet as claimed by the Warren Commission.

Findings of the spectrographic analysis were misrepresented and perhaps
even deceptive.

Further suspicion concerning the evidence was aroused with the discovery of two seemingly identical FBI reports concerning the brown paper bag
authorities claimed was used to smuggle the rifle into the Depository.
While one FBI document stated the paper bag matched paper in the
Depository, the other stated the paper was different.

Other items-such as the presidential limousine and Connally's clothingwere destroyed as evidence by order of federal authorities.

The most incriminating evidence against Oswald was the photographs
reportedly made in the backyard of his home in March 1963. Yet a careful
study of the three available snapshots-one was hidden from the public for
more than thirteen years-gives ample evidence of fakery. This conclusion
is supported by photographic experts both in England and Canada. Oswald
himself claimed the photos were composites-his face pasted on someone
else's body.

Yet the FBI and a photographic panel of the House Select Committee on
Assassinations claim the photos are genuine. If they are not genuine, this
means some sort of deception has taken place at the level of the federal
investigations.

It can be demonstrated that such deception took place with reenactments
of the assassination. Two Texas surveyors who were employed to conduct
a reenactment of the assassination in Dealey Plaza for the FBI and Secret
Service in 1964 have said their distance and elevation numbers were
altered when published by the Warren Commission, making all of the
detailed computations of time and distance offered by the Commission
invalid. They also said the FBI and Secret Service ordered them not to
record extraneous bullet marks in the street and on the Elm Street curbfurther evidence of the deceit practiced by federal authorities.

All in all, there is not one single piece of physical evidence used against
Oswald that cannot be called into question. This evidence must be considered in light of the possibility that much of it could have been planted for
the purpose of incriminating Oswald in the assassination.

Once all this is understood, the case against Oswald as the lone assassin
seems to crumble.

I think the Warren Commission has, in fact, collapsed like a house of cards.

-Senator Richard Schweiker

The federal government-led by President Lyndon Johnson-began to
assert itself immediately following Kennedy's death.

The day after the assassination, despite tremendous confusion in Dallas
and elsewhere, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to Johnson a
preliminary report detailing the evidence supporting the idea of Lee Harvey Oswald's sole guilt.

Following the death of the accused assassin on November 24, there were
growing calls for an investigation wider than that of the Dallas police, who
were being held responsible for Oswald's death in many circles.

That same day, Hoover talked with Johnson aide Walter Jenkins, stating:

The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General
Nicholas D.] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can
convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach
thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Commission of
three outstanding citizens to make a determination.

On November 25, President Johnson ordered his friend Hoover to
prepare a detailed report on the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's
death. The news media were already reporting leaks from the Bureau
including: ". . . rumors that will be spiked by the [FBI] report . . . is one
that there was a conspiracy involved, and another one that shots fired at
Kennedy came from different guns."

That same day, Katzenbach wrote a memo to Johnson aide Bill Moyers
and outlined his thoughts on an assassination investigation:

It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's
assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the
United States and abroad. That all the facts have been told and that a
statement to this effect be made now.

1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was assassin; that he did
not have confederates who are still at large; that the evidence was such
that he would have been convicted at trial.

2. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and
we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Com munist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing
conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on
Oswald seem about too pat-too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife,
etc.). The Dallas Police have put out statements on the Communist
conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was
shot and thus silenced.

3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor
conviction; facts are mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely
let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas Police when our
President is murdered.

I think this objective may be satisfied and made public as soon as
possible with the completion of a thorough FBI report on Oswald and
the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistency between this report and statements by Dallas Police officials;
but the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.

The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential
Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the
evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and
disadvantages. I think it can await publication of the FBI report and
public reaction to it here and abroad.

Also on November 25, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr announced he planned to conduct a court of inquiry concerning the deaths of
both Kennedy and Oswald. Can named two prominent Texas attorneysLeon Jaworski (who went on to become the special Watergate prosecutor)
and Dean Storey-as special counsel for the probe.

The next day, Senator Everett Dirksen announced that a Senate investigation of the assassination would be conducted by a special committee
headed by Senator James O. Eastland, chairman of the powerful Judiciary
Committee. One Republican senator told newsmen: "Too many people are
disturbed about the strange circumstances of the whole tragic affair."

Not to be outdone by the Senate, an attempt to create yet another
investigative committee was announced in the House of Representatives
the next day.

The grief-stricken attorney general, Robert Kennedy, was never consulted about any of these attempts. But the next-ranking officials of the
Justice Department-Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach and Solicitor
General Archibald Cox (later of Watergate fame)-met with Johnson's
close friend, Attorney Abe Fortas, who had blocked the 1948 election
investigation of Johnson by obtaining a court order from Supreme Court
Justice Hugo Black.

These men, aided by Yale law professor Eugene Rostow, Secretary of
State Dean Rusk, and columnist Joseph Alsop, convinced President Johnson that his plan for a Texas investigation could by misinterpreted by the
public as an attempt to cover up the crimes in Johnson's home state.

It was decided that a national commission headed by men of unimpeachable integrity was needed.